Tazendra and Aerich
by vampfire
Summary: This is for anyone who enjoyed the pre-Vlad era books as much as I did. I wrote it from a one-liner Tazendra dropped on Pel; I love how she's the only character ever able to startle him. Minor spoiler for Lord of Castle Black.


***  
  
A.N. I wrote this after reading The Lord of Castle Black from a one-liner Tazendra dropped on Pel; I love how she's the only character ever able to startle that particularly crafty Yendi. If you don't understand why this is written the way it is (hey, there aren't nearly as many clauses as I could have put into these sentences - I exercised restraint) then you haven't read the Khaavren romances and Paarfi's other works and probably won't find this funny.  
  
Disclaimer: Characters and world are entirely Steven Brust's. No infringement intended. No profit being made.  
  
***  
  
Tazendra and Aerich  
  
By Vampfire  
  
(I refuse to come up with a creative title for something that is less than 1500 words, and which would be less than 200 words if Paarfi had not had a hand in the dialogue. Be assured that, had I allowed Paarfi to influence the narrative bits as well, it would be well over 3000 words and you readers would be forced to endure an account of the battle, descriptions of the terrain and weather and local wildlife, explanations of the attractions offered by certain nearby villages and a discussion of their staple imports and exports. You would be subjected to descriptions of the important waterways in the region. You would be forced to ponder the quirks of history and Fate which left the very woods our heroes find themselves treading through with the name The Forgotten Forest, and whether, having been recorded in this fanfiction, the forest can truly be said to be forgotten any longer. Also, you may thank the gods that Paarfi didn't weasel his way into this introduction.)  
  
***  
  
"Two on twenty. As the twenty were well-trained and seemed to have no small amount of talent, I would say those odds were well enough," said Tazendra, who was still glowing from battle rage.  
  
"I was confident you would find them so," said Aerich who, though he had fought cooly and with no display of undue emotion during the battle, now threw a broad smile of exhilaration at the Dzurlord. The pair of them continued to make their way through the forest, not ten minutes after they had cleaned their swords from the engagement.  
  
"And did you not yourself enjoy the battle, friend Aerich? Though you were standing at my back and I was, therefore, unable to watch your performance, I did notice after the fight that you had disposed of nearly as many of the enemy as I myself accounted for."  
  
"Oh, as to the battle, it was well enough. It is only now, as we walk away from the site of it as we have been doing these past ten minutes, that I begin to regret allowing my guard to slip during that moment when I was caused to fight four of their number at once."  
  
"You! Allow your guard to slip? Cha! I will never believe such a thing!" she said vehemently.  
  
"Ah, my dear, but it did occur, and the proof is this: by this present moment, the blood from the wound I received due to that momentary slip has quite soaked through the clothing I wear about my left leg."  
  
Tazendra stopped walking and turned her attention to the state of the mentioned clothing, which was indeed wet with blood. "My friend, we must stop this instant and address this wound."  
  
Aerich, who was truthfully looking pale by this point, reached out to steady himself against the trunk of a tree on his right while he allowed his body to fairly collapse to the ground. "Tazendra, I believe your idea to be a splendid one."  
  
"Do you think so?" she asked brightly, settling beside him on the ground.  
  
"I do," he assured her succinctly, swallowing a gasp of pain as he set about removing the clothing from his lower body.  
  
"It is well that I have learned from Sethra some elements of healing," Tazendra remarked.  
  
Aerich leaned back against the tree, his legs now bare and the wound apparent. It was a long cut, though not too deep, and had caused him to lose a good quantity of blood.  
  
Tazendra laid her hands just above his knee, one on either side of the wound, and chanted the words Sethra pretended would help a sorcerer ready his mind for the task of healing. That done, she slowly moved her hands upward along the wound, kneading the skin to its sides as she drew power carefully from the Orb.  
  
Aerich watched as the wound turned into a closed scar below the upward progress of Tazendra's hold upon his leg. As her hands moved up his thigh and her body leaned closer to his, in fact causing her wavy black hair to spill onto his shoulder, Aerich breathed out slowly and allowed his eyes to slide closed.  
  
"It is done," said Tazendra, leaning back on her heels. Aerich opened his eyes. "Though I wonder, is there any further injury upon your person?"  
  
"None," Aerich said. "Save for this cut one opponent managed to give me across the back of my hand."  
  
Tazendra took his hand into both of hers and healed that cut as well. "Are you quite certain that is all?" she repeated.  
  
"Yes, I am certain, but I perceive you have asked this question of me twice now."  
  
"Yes," said Tazendra, "I believe I have."  
  
"Well, the only explanation I can think of for your repeated question is that you suspect I have yet another injury."  
  
"Yes," she said, "That is it exactly."  
  
"If I might ask, how ever did you come to this suspicion?"  
  
"Well, upon healing the cut in your leg," she began, placing her hands again upon his wounded thigh. "I happened to notice a portion of your body standing upright, when I believe the proper position is for it to lie flat."  
  
Aerich glanced at this portion of his anatomy, but hid his understandable dismay. "Well, that is easily enough explained, my dear," he said in a rather subdued tone.  
  
"Ah, is it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, what is this famous explanation?"  
  
"You would like me to tell it to you?"  
  
"I think I have been asking nothing else for an hour!"  
  
"Then I will explain."  
  
"And you will be right to do so."  
  
"Here, then, is the explanation for the occurrence you have noticed: it is the reaction of a trained Lyorn warrior to the proximity of a beautiful woman."  
  
"Ah," said Tazendra, blushing. "How, do you pretend I am a beautiful woman?"  
  
"I do more than that; I assert it to be true. And, moreover, you are a beautiful woman who has been affecting me in this way for nearly all the years of our friendship."  
  
A troubled look came upon Tazendra's countenance. "It is as I feared then."  
  
"How, feared?" Aerich asked, tasting fear himself.  
  
"Well, as I once explained to our friend Pel, the only man of my acquaintance I should ever think to marry is you, Aerich, but alas Fate has decreed you to be a Lyorn and I to be a Dzur."  
  
"Ah," said Aerich, whose eyes fell closed a moment upon hearing this revelation. He composed himself and said, "Perhaps I can solve this dilemma for you."  
  
"Can you? Please tell me at once, for you perceive I had despaired of ever solving it."  
  
"It is by the same logic our friend Khaavren once used that I will explain: is it still true that you would behead anyone who barred you from entering a public house?"  
  
"Why, yes, either that or run them through with..."  
  
"And is it still true," interrupted the Lyorn gently. "That you would use a flashstone against anyone so unkind as to interrupt your morning exercises and insist that you cease them?"  
  
"Yes," said Tazendra, "Only now, you perceive, I do not need a flashstone to do sorcerous damage. Hold! These are the very arguments Khaavren used to convince me to take on a lackey!"  
  
"And did not the decision to engage Mica come to the benefit of us and all our friends, despite the fact that it was not then fashionable to have a lackey?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"Well, then I should think you will not let custom dictate to whom you can marry any more than you allowed fashion to dictate whether you could engage a lackey."  
  
"How, you pretend the rule that a Dzur marry only another Dzur and a Lyorn marry only a Lyorn is no more than a custom?"  
  
"Exactly."  
  
Tazendra pondered that for a moment before saying, "But surely there is good reason for this custom. Only think if a Lyorn and a Dzur were to have offspring. The poor child would not be accepted of either house, no matter how courageous she was in battle."  
  
This gave Aerich pause until he came to a solution. "Well, if instead of marrying and producing children, a Dzur and a Lyorn were to have an affair, I contend the two persons in question would still be quite capable of attaining happiness."  
  
"How, do you propose that you and I have an affair?"  
  
"Yes," said Aerich, whose voice was not quite steady. "If you brought to it the same energy I have seen you bring to battle these countless times we have fought side by side, well, you would make me the happiest of men."  
  
"You perceive that you have caused me to blush."  
  
"I am treasuring the sight of it, my dear Tazendra," Aerich assured her. "But, come now, what do you say to my arguments?"  
  
"As to that, as usual, I am entirely convinced by your logic."  
  
"Ah, Tazendra, I could very well kiss you."  
  
"How, do you pretend I would allow you to kiss me?" she asked.  
  
"Precisely."  
  
"Well, you are very nearly right," she told him.  
  
"Very nearly?"  
  
"Yes. Instead, it is I who will have the pleasure of kissing you," Tazendra said, matching words to action.  
  
*** 


End file.
